Loading ...As a child, did you ever get one of those crappy knock-off Radio Shack remote control cars as a gift? Nothing but kinked up wires attached to a 3 foot long cord, plastic wheels, and a made in Ukraine sticker on the bottom? Well, it’s time to start making up for it. How about starting off with an R.C. tiger? An actual, literal, remote controlled tiger. We’re not there yet, but we’re not as far off as you might think. Scientists are delving ever deeper into the somewhat disturbing realm of remote control animals, and here’s how they’re doing so far…
One of the early successful attempts at remotely controlling another living creature was conducted by Yale scientists, who started things off small, and began experimenting on fruit flies.
Fruit flies are pretty basic creatures, so it makes sense to start with them when you ultimately decide to try your hand at both animal programming and blasphemy. They stimulated the neurons of the flies with laser pulses, which did prove successful in a small way. They could provoke periods of activity or inactivity, but that was pretty much it. And, because playing god is just no fun unless there’s a bit of terror in it, they then continued on to prove that the fruit fly doesn’t even need a brain to be controlled… by chopping its god damn head off!
So, undead laser controlled insects? Pretty good for a first try at horror, Yale! But, never content to leave well enough alone, scientists at Berkley went ahead and upped the terror ante by doing similar experiments with a Rhinoceros Beetle. Because if you’re trying to win the Fear Olympics, then tiny, nearly invisible, insect zombies definitely take second place to the World’s Largest Cyborg Beetle.
But unlike Yale, the Berkeley scientists didn’t kill their monster-thing. They just mounted radio-actuated electrodes in the beetle’s limbs and brain. This also gave them much more accurate control of the insect – actually allowing them to steer the beetle once they kickstarted it into motion. So good news for everybody that’s always wanted to be chased down by giant weaponized beetles controlled by hidden enemies! Not so good news for sanity and unshit pants.
What, you think that’s an exaggeration? The project was entirely funded by DARPA… for primary use in military applications. They chose this particular beetle because it can carry up to 3 grams worth of equipment, but the Control Rig only weighs 1.3. This leaves them with a relatively small, but still pretty useable amount of cargo weight in which to pack all sorts of things. For the time being, that cargo is likely going to be little more than a camera or microphone for surveillance purposes, but it’s not hard to conceive of other uses. How much can a needle and an effective poison weigh? How much C4 does it take to blow up a face? Somewhat disturbing questions, to be sure, but now at least you have an excuse that’ll make you look like a bit less of a pussy when you run away from spiders screaming: They could very well be explosive assassins controlled by the government.
So far remote control seems to be limited to the insect realm, and making that leap to a mammalian brain has to be a much more complicated process. So it’s likely a fair ways off before you’re able to buy your kid his first R.C. Grizzly Bear…right?
No!
Ha! Science got you again!
Scientists at the State University of New York have already trained rats to obey remote signals at a distance of up to 500 yards.
They achieved this by wiring the rat’s brain up with three sensors – one to the area that controls the right whiskers, one to the left, and one to the reward center. They stimulate the area of the brain associated with which direction the rat needs to turn, and stimulate the reward center if it obeys. After about five sessions, the rats obeyed without question. A human operator was then able to navigate them blindly through a maze, force them to leap from high ledges, or just shut them down completely.
The best part?
All of the equipment only cost them about $40 bucks. That’s right! For less than the price of a video game, you could suck the free will from a living creature and replace it with your own instead! Hey, don’t say the future never gave you nothing: Because even if you’re not into defying morality in order to possess similar powers to Aquaman and the Rat King – the future will now, at the very least, give you some pretty kickin’ nightmares.
Read more from Robert at his own site, I Fight Robots
